Tanks for Helping
by 0penfire
Summary: Tanks have been sent into Chuo Street to combat youths on skates, and two rudies get caught in the crossfire. But among the bullets and steel are some friendly faces willing to lend a hand.


(Art in image is by coffee-cait on tumblr)

"Get out of my way!" Pedestrians fell to the ground as the rudie barreled past them. She knew that electrical fences were going to be placed up at any minute, and she didn't want to get caught in Chuo Street when that happened. Civilians that weren't pushed to the ground were running into cafes and stores, trying to get out of the crossfire that they knew was imminent.

Someone might have assumed that there was an army in Tokyo who would show up with weapons of their own to take on the police, but the locals knew that the real enemy was something else. Something armed only with paint, music, and some fancy footwear.

"Hey Horus, I've got a great new idea for our street-clothes." Horus turned to her second in command who was skating up beside her.

"Now's really not the time, Phoenix."

"Hear me out! Bullet proof vests!"

"Yeah, that will really help against missiles and batons." Honestly, Horus would have been impressed at the variety of tactics the police employed to take out rudies if every single attempt was not aimed at her and her friends.

"No need to be rude about it," Phoenix said with a smile. He was used to his leader's sour attitude. His smile only faltered when they made it to the center of Chuo Street.

The fences were already in place.

They were trapped.

The music playing on their radios was cut out and Professor K's voice crackled to life.

"Artists of anarchy, Chuo Street needs you! The city has turned into a demilitarized zone! I don't think those combat vehicles have to obey traffic signs. Take out those nasty iron behemoths!' the music began playing once more.

"What iron behemoths," Phoenix muttered just as several tanks came into view at the Dinosaur statue and began rolling down the street towards them.

"You forgot to tell us one thing K - HOW DO WE DESTROY THEM!" Horus yelled to the empty street. "See, Nix?" She gestured at the tank, exasperated. "Bullet proof vests wouldn't help against those anyways."

"Do you hear that?" Phoenix asked.

"I hear tanks that we should be running from. Right now. Because I really don't want to paint the pavement red," but she listened anyways. What she heard was skates and shouting. What was strange was the shouts were not from fear. They voice almost sounded happy.

"Join the party, noobs." A pair of arms flung over the Winged Ones' shoulders Horus whipped around to punch the body in between them, but the person let go quickly and was grinning when they turned to face him. His red hair gleamed in the sun.

"You two seem like the mighty-fighty sort. This will go quicker if we have all hands on deck, so are you in?"

"Who the hell are you?" Horus spat. The man tilted his head coyly.

"Introductions can wait. We've got to take those out before they take us out."

"And how do we do that?" Phoenix asked. "They're huge!"

"Just dodge the gun and spray the windows. The guy inside should come up and then it's whack-a-mole." Beat began skating towards the nearest tank with Horus and Phoenix in tow. "Spread out! It will confuse him!" Horus wasn't sure if she could trust this man. He was confident enough in his plan, but she would have bet her skates that he'd never faced one before.

"How do you even know this will work?"

"Special privileges," the rudie said, tapping his huge headphones. The tank wheeled its turret around as the driver saw them. "Watch out!" Horus quickly dodged away from where she had been just as the tank fired. Her ears were ringing as she sprayed the windows and ducked as the gun came spinning around again. Just as Beat had predicted, the man inside popped up.

The machine gun in the man's hand caused Horus to freeze as the barrel pointed right between her eyes. But before he could shoot, Phoenix punched him from behind.

"Nice!" Beat said while grinning like a mad man. His enthusiasm was contagious, and Horus almost forgot the danger they were in.

"You'd think tanks would be a bit more effective than this!" She shouted to Phoenix.

"Yeah, they'd need an army of robots to stop us!" Phoenix laughed, but Beat didn't seem to find the joke so funny. Phoenix's smile dropped. "Rokkaku doesn't have an army of robots, does he?" Beat was taken off guard.

"Not that I've seen, but I wouldn't put it past him."

A voice from above interrupted them. "Hey you little punks!" The trio looked up to see Hayashi standing on top of an apartment roof, pointing at them with his gun.

"I hate that guy so much," Beat growled. "Someone should just push him off the roof." Like clockwork, a figure silhouetted by the sun appeared from behind the man and pushed him to the streets below. He fell on the glass roof of the patio which cracked and sent him to the ground.

He didn't move, but Horus found that she really didn't care.

The figure on the roof did a little victory dance but stopped when he saw the trio looking at him.

"Yo! Beat!" A surprisingly high-pitched voice called. Next thing Beat knew, the figure had jumped off the roof and was barrelling towards him. The lime-green ball of speed skated right into him and the momentum sent them both rolling backwards as the smaller boy held him in his arms.

"I thought you were a goner, yo! Why did you leeeaaaave?!" The boy wailed. Horus had hardly known the boy for ten seconds and she was already wishing he would stop talking.

"You did fine by yourself. Now. Let. _Go_!" On the last word, Beat peeled the boy off of him and held him at arm's length.

Horus was surprised when she noticed another person skating towards them. The woman turned sharply to stop next to the group, causing sparks to fly.

"Yoyo's right," she said, ignoring Yoyo asking her to repeat herself. "You really shouldn't have gone off on your own."

"It's fine, Gum. I found some stragglers to help. They've got some skills!" The grin slipped onto his face again.

"That was pretty awesome!" Phoenix said. "We've fought helicopters once or twice, but tanks? They'd never get into Sky-Dino- _mph_!" Horus clapped her hand over her partner's mouth.

"Thanks for the good time, but we've really got to fly." Horus began dragging Phoenix away, already forming a lecture on the importance of secret hide-outs in her head.

"Wait!" Yoyo called to them. Horus looked back and let go of Phoenix. "Aren't you going to ask to join the GG's or something? That's what some people do when we team up." He lowered his sunglasses to look at Beat who glared at him.

"We've already got a team started," Horus called back.

"Just as well," Yoyo shrugged. "If we recruited everyone who helped us, we'd be the babysitters of half the rudie population."

"Instead, we're the ones responsible for the biggest idiot of them all." Beat threw an arm around Yoyo's shoulders. "He won't come to your doorstep asking for food and free cable now. You're welcome." Beat ruffled the younger rudie's hair.

The woman turned to Yoyo. "What did Corn tell you about handing out invitations like free samples?! You're going to make us grow like mold on old bread!

"So now I'm mold?" Beat frowned at the woman.

"Yeah. Got a problem with it?"

"Yeah, I do." He pulled out a spray can.

"Flee! Get away while you still can!" Yoyo shouted dramatically at the Winged Ones. The duo grinned and began skating away, waving goodbye to Yoyo and the two fighting rudies who were too busy glaring daggers at each other to notice. "Don't forget to write!"

"Our gang seems almost normal now," Phoenix smiled. Horus couldn't fight the smile that grew on her own face.

Being a rudie was alright. She just wished there were less tanks.

-.-.-

 _AN: Okay, so I love Jet Set Radio Future. It has been such a big part of my life and my creative ventures in drawing and writing. This is actually just one thing that I have written out of three separate story ideas, but none of the others are completed enough to be worth posting. This one has my OC gang Winged Ones themed around mythical flying creatures, and centred in Sky-Dinosaurian Square. I developed the gang almost a decade ago, but I figured this snippet also worked as an outsider POV of the GG's dynamics. So, I hope you enjoyed!_


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